It has been known to utilize inflatable compartments for protecting articles from shock, to reduce heat transfer and for purposes of flotation. Moreover, pouches or bags incorporating gas inflated external compartments for protecting the contents of the bags or pouches have been designed in the past as evidenced, for example, by U.S. Pat Nos. 4,155,453, 4,184,596 and 4,262,801, but such designs have not been used to any appreciable extent.
The inflatable packages of the prior art have been unattractive in appearance and expensive to manufacture, requiring special equipment and not being well suited for use with present day automated quantity production techniques. There is, therefore, a need for inflatable packages which can be inexpensively produced and which are attractive in appearance so as to enable their widespread use for many applications including gift wrapping.